- Details
- Category: Hunting
- Published: Sunday, 03 November 2024 13:59
- Written by Greg
Limited Entry Deer Hunt - a Disappointment
For a while I thought it was just me who was disappointed with the number of buck deer we were seeing. My thinking was that if a person sacrificed 19 years of putting in for a limited entry deer tag, the expectation would be to often see 2, 3 and 4 year old bucks. But every single group of hunters that we talked to expressed the same thought. I don’t think ten different groups of hunters were wrong, especially since those hunting parties were covering areas from the tops of the mountain, down and into the wintering ranges. One outfitter that has guided the area for 15+ years told us that this year was the worst he’d experienced and that he had only seen one big buck since early August.
Pulling doubles as we arrive at camp
Enough of the excuses, we did learn some hard and valuable lessons that we will consider for future hunts. In particular, one valuable lesson we should have prioritized higher is that we should have been scouting this hunting unit during the season we planned to hunt for at least a couple of years prior to drawing the tag. It turns out that the deer in this unit migrate before the rifle hunt begins and were not where we found them when we scouted in September. Also, the rumor is that the archery and muzzleloader hunts are the prime times to hunt the San Juan Elk Ridge unit because the rifle hunt is supposedly known to be extremely difficult. Lastly we should have talked to more people that have previously hunted the unit. The folks we talked to who were scouting for late season elk (both for spike and mature bulls) that hunt here yearly were full of great information, but unfortunately that intel came a little too late for us.
Late Oct. snows usually help but not on this hunt Two of the bigger (only 2 ½ yr old) bucks tussling
The San Juan Elk Ridge deer unit is gigantic. In the early season it is somewhat easier to find the deer since they are up high, but once the fall season hits the deer scatter as they move to lower country where there are thousands of acres for them to winter. We did our best to cover as many areas as possible in the week we had to hunt but didn’t see much. We found a few deer up high but the majority of the deer we saw were way down low in the cedars. And of those deer most were does with a few yearling bucks around. Only a few times did we see a 2 ½ year old buck or older, which in my opinion was very disappointing.
Days of moisture caused boulders to block road Moved boulder enough to pass w/ATV
One of the times where we saw a semi-mature buck was on the second day of the hunt. We saw a 3 ½ year old 4 point (could have possibly been 4 ½ years old) that we passed up thinking that we’d possibly consider shooting toward the end of the hunt. My son Dallas, who held the tag, looked over the 4 point buck and quickly decided that this was not the target buck for him. In fact, we thought we’d pass on six or seven additional bucks of this caliber while in search of a more mature buck. At that time we had no way of knowing that this particular buck would be the largest buck we’d encounter during the entire hunt.
Looking for deer down low in cedars Glassing from highest point
Day after day we put mile upon mile on our vehicles looking for ideal hunting spots, those that should hold deer. The 2-door Chevy Tracker that we used most often took us to many remote locations where we hiked and glassed without seeing much at all. In fact, during the entire trip we only saw two spike elk that were sneaking together through the trees in a unit that held large numbers of mature elk just a few years ago, but that’s a different topic altogether. Sadly this same story of few animals seen was repeated by hunter after hunter during our 7 day hunt.
Lots of petrified wood...bunch of shards here Must be a bear around somewhere
Our final (and only other) encounter with a semi-mature buck was just hours before we were destined to head home. The sun had set and we had all but given up, knowing there were only a few minutes of legal shooting time remaining. While Dallas could have shot a 2 point buck 30 minutes previous, for him shooting that buck was out of the question so something would have to happen quickly if at all. And that’s when it happened -- in the faint orange glow from the now nonexistent sun we spotted some dark objects moving along a fence line several hundred yards away, deer. Was it possible that within the group of deer a shooter might exist? With just minutes to spare we wasted no time examining each. And there it was a 4 point buck smack dab in the middle of the bunch! Dallas immediately determined the buck was worth shooting even though it was not the caliber of buck he was hoping for. However it was the second biggest buck of the trip so in that a split-second Dallas made the decision to give it a try. By the time Dallas was setup and ready to shoot, the buck had moved to within 234 yards. With only 5 minutes of legal shooting time remaining, Dallas sent the 175 gr. ELD-X bullet from his 7 PRC on its way. Watching through my binoculars I saw the buck drop as the other deer scattered! It was over, the almost 20 years of anticipation for this moment had actually come to fruition, Dallas tagged out on a respectable 4 point buck!
Just walking up on his buck Camera's night sight - looks lighter than it was